Rhythm names: ta and ti-ti explained for parents

Ta and ti-ti are rhythm names. A child says “ta” for a quarter note and “ti-ti” for a pair of eighth notes. The names let a child speak a rhythm out loud before knowing how to count it. Teachers who follow the Kodály approach use them, and so do many school music teachers.

If your child comes home chanting “ta, ta, ti-ti, ta,” this is what it means.

The common rhythm names

Rhythm	What it is	Name
One sound on a beat	Quarter note	ta
Two even sounds on a beat	Two eighth notes	ti-ti
One sound held for two beats	Half note	ta-a
One sound held for four beats	Whole note	ta-a-a-a
Four quick sounds on a beat	Four sixteenth notes	tika-tika
One long and two quick sounds on a beat	An eighth and two sixteenths	ti-tika
Two quick sounds and one long on a beat	Two sixteenths and an eighth	tika-ti
Short, long, short	Eighth, quarter, eighth	syn-co-pa
A beat of silence	Quarter rest	A silent gesture, or “sh”

Teachers differ in the details. Some say “too” for a half note and “tiri-tiri” for four sixteenths. Use the names your child’s teacher uses.

Why say names and not numbers?

Counting with numbers asks a child to know where each beat falls in the bar. That is a lot for a five-year-old. A rhythm name asks for one thing only: how long is this sound?

Each name also sounds like its rhythm. “Ta” is one sound. “Ti-ti” is two quick ones. “Tika-tika” trips off the tongue as fast as four sixteenth notes.

Counting with numbers comes later, once the rhythms are in the ear.

Stick notation

Teachers often write early rhythms with stems only and no noteheads. A single upright line is ta. Two lines joined at the top are ti-ti. A child can write a rhythm with four quick strokes of a pencil. Noteheads are added when the child starts to read from the staff.

Where the names came from

A French teacher named Aimé Paris worked out a set of spoken names for note lengths in the 1800s. The English teacher John Curwen brought the idea into his singing method. Teachers in Hungary reshaped the names for use with the ideas of Zoltán Kodály, and that version spread to schools around the world. Read more in the Kodály method explained.

Other systems you may hear

Counting. “One and two and” for eighth notes, and “one e and a” for sixteenth notes. Most band, orchestra, and piano teachers use this.

Takadimi. The beat is always “ta,” and the sounds within a beat are “ta-di” or “ta-ka-di-mi.”

Du and du-de. A system from the teacher Edwin Gordon, where the beat is “du” and two sounds on a beat are “du-de.”

All of them do the same job. A child who knows one can learn another.

Games to play at home

Say and clap. Write four beats on a piece of paper using ta and ti-ti. Say them while you clap. Then let your child write four beats for you.

Name rhythms. Say the names of people in your family as rhythms. “Sam” is ta. “Em-ma” is ti-ti. “Al-ex-an-der” is tika-tika.

Walk and jog. Walk on the spot for ta. Jog for ti-ti. Call out a pattern and move to it.

Echo. Clap four beats. Your child claps them back and says the names.

Find the rest. Clap a pattern with one silent beat in it. Your child shows where the rest was by opening both hands.

Make cards. Write one beat on each of several index cards: some ta, some ti-ti, some rests. Lay four in a row, clap the line, then swap two cards.

How this connects to reading music

Rhythm names lead straight into note values. Ta becomes the quarter note, ti-ti becomes eighth notes, and the child already knows how they sound. Note values explained shows what each note looks like, and time signatures explained covers how the beats are grouped.

Use the metronome for kids to keep the beat steady while you chant. For the pitch side of the same approach, read solfege hand signs for kids.